Fill in the Blanks DramaticOnline version Dramatic by marco rabadan 1 demand logical boom involved rely expensive decline The end of the road for the filling station ? There are more cars than ever before on the roads throughout the world . Why then are the number of gas stations falling ? We are in the middle of an oil . The whole world is in love with the car . Car sales are increasing every year . The U . S . A . alone has 275 million cars on the road . The UK has just under 26 million . At the same time , something strange is happening , something that is not . You may have noticed a similar thing in your country . At a time when the for fuel is higher than ever before , the number of places that exist to sell it is decreasing ? fast . But why ? The answer , at least in the case of big cities , is a simple one . The value of land . Take New York for example . The New York Times reported recently that there are only 50 filling stations in Manhattan . Eight years ago , there were 80 ! It's a similar story wherever real estate is . San Francisco lost 40% of its petrol stations in 2016 and replaced them with houses . London has just four inside the central zone . A single story building like a traditional service station no longer makes sense . Fine , but we don't all live in New York or London , do we ? What about in the suburbs and rural areas ? Why is there a there too ? The answer , it seems , comes down to customer habits . For example , in the U . S . A . , petrol sales are not the main source of profit for a petrol station . In fact , if you only on fuel sales only , it is not enough to stay open . In the past , many service stations were run by a motor mechanic . Today , most cars have complex computer management . They need equipment that costs a lot of money to spot the problem . But the biggest change ? Well , megastores like Walmart and Tesco got . They gambled on the theory that people will drive many miles to save money on fuel . And , they were right . They sold fuel at such low prices that they changed people's habits . With the added bonus that people would think , " I've come so far , I might as well shop here too . " Which , of course , is where the big stores can recover the lost profit from the low fuel prices . Should we care ? That depends on what you think about competition I guess . But when all the fuel is sold from just one or two places in your city , don't be surprised when the prices start to rise again . Let's check what you remember !
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